


you're never too much of an old dog to teach a duckling a new trick

by driedupwishes



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Light Angst, POV Chris Argent, RIP Allison Argent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 14:39:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6156885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/driedupwishes/pseuds/driedupwishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Y’know, it’d be real <i>neat</i> if someone gave me a gun,” Stiles says.</p>
<p>And Chris does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're never too much of an old dog to teach a duckling a new trick

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Come2findme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Come2findme/gifts).



Chris has lost track of everything that’s gone wrong in this blasted town. He doesn’t know exactly where he’d lost track of it all ( _you’re a terrible liar, Dad_ , she used to laugh and god, he misses her every day, misses that laugh, misses-) but the thing of the matter is, this is the life he was raised for. He’s an Argent, he follows his orders and hunts, and at the end of the day, he’s here to help protect those who cannot protect themselves.

(Her words.

She haunts his every step like that, even worse than her mother did.)

So by the time Stiles’ says, in that offhand bitter way he’s picked up somewhere, “y’know, it’d be real _neat_ if someone gave me a gun,” Chris can’t remember why he’s even really _there_.

Braeden laughs at Stiles’ statement, though the sound is more like a snort, more like something Derek might have made. Chris can’t help but notice how Stiles’ lips thin at the sound, how he stands there, pale, strained, as she breezes him by, shotgun slung across her back.

“Not on your life,” she tuts at him, marching away to battle, fingers curled into claws. Chris doesn’t know how she does it, only he does-

Victoria had been like that too.

(It had been one of the many things he had loved about her.)

Stiles’ sputtering noise of indignation never comes. His anger never comes. In its place is a kind of empty, bottomless silence, one that’s only marked in the way his shoulders slump, his expression hollows out. Chris isn’t even sure Stiles’ still realizes he’s there, eyes glazing over a little as he looks down at his hands and lets out a hollow, shaking laugh.

“Yeah,” Stiles says quietly. “My life isn’t worth that much I guess.”

Chris had tried once, to reach out to Lydia, to teach her, to hand her a gun and a bow. He’d called it self-defense at the time, but the red headed teenager had just looked at him, eyes sparkling with tears she wouldn’t let fall, and flatly told him, _I can’t be your replacement, Mr. Argent, I’m sorry_ before fleeing the room. He’d never brought it up to her again, figuring she could handle herself, banshee and everything, and so far she’d been okay.

He’d never taken into account Stiles, though. Always kind of figured the Sherriff would get around to that.

Guess he had his hands full trying to keep this hell-bound town held together or something, because it looked like he hadn’t gotten around to it at all.

Chris reaches behind him, pulls out the gun he has tucked under the back of his shirt, and in three long steps he’s standing in front of Stiles, who trembles in surprise when he holds the thing out to him, butt first.

“Safety’s on,” Chris says, watching Stiles’ eyes widen, his mouth falling over. Kid hasn’t looked so wide eyed and small since before Chris held him against a hospital wall and tried to threaten his life nearly two years before. It’s not a good look on the gangly kid, that’s for sure.

“Wha- I-“ Stiles goes to grab the thing, lips trembling but hand steady, and Chris pulls it back at the last second, tipping his jaw up as Stiles looks at him to tower over him, just a little. Stiles’ isn’t scared of him and Chris is way too tired to actually go around scaring teenagers anymore, but some authority is gonna be needed around here if this is gonna work. Stiles meets his eyes head on and something in them makes Chris smile, for what might be the first time in weeks.

“Show me you know how to handle this and we’ll see about letting you keep it,” Chris tells him.

Cockiness, the kind only teenagers can really master, flashes pink across Stiles’ cheeks as he takes the gun, flips it into his grip, checking the magazine and the safety with quick sure motions. He stays away from the trigger and keeps it pointed away from either of them, which means Chris was right and that he had been instructed on at least basic firearm safety.

This is good, Chris thinks idly; this gives him something to work with.

“Good,” Chris says. “Now let’s see how your aim is.”

Stiles is the quietest he’s ever been in Chris’ presence that evening, shooting the targets Chris indicates with an accuracy that only gets better and better, until Chris deems him good enough to keep the gun, so long as he promises not to do something stupid like keep it in his car at school or get them both arrested by his father. Stiles’ snorts a laugh at that, one that flushes his face and shakes his shoulders, bleeding life back into his pale, pale face.

“Trust me, I want that even less than you do,” Stiles says, shaking his head. Chris claps him on the shoulder and while the young man is gangly, there are wiry muscles there, _potential_ there.

“Glad to hear it,” Chris finds himself saying. He can hear Allison’s voice in her head, fresh from her week of school. _There’s a boy in some of my classes, his name’s Scott_ , she had said, biting her lower lip and glancing away. Chris had wanted to flip the kitchen table, but Victoria’s hand on his arm had kept him still. _He’s got a friend, Stiles. I think they’re on the lacrosse team_.

Stiles had been skittish, cropped close hair and pale as a waning moon, the first time Chris had seem him. When he’d broken the news about Kate, he’d been shaking like a leaf in the wind, trembling all the way to his toes, voice cracking with the weight of his nerves.

Later the same night Chris gives Stiles the gun, he watches the young man shoot a witch from twenty yards, catching her in the shoulder mid-spell, freeing Liam from the curse keeping him pinned and breathless halfway up an old oak tree. The werewolf tumbles to the ground and the gun fires a second time, the witch’s body falling backwards.

He’d caught in the throat, robbing her of her voice. She chokes on her own blood, sputtering uselessly without her voice, unable to curse them as she dies.

Stiles is still throughout it all, safety already back on the gun by the time Liam catches his breath once more. Chris claps him on the shoulder again, squeezing him, and Stiles looks at him, wide eyes the only indication that he’s affected by this at all.

“Good job, son,” Chris tells him quietly. Liam is making a fuss about _who gave you a gun_ and _Jesus, did you steal it from Braeden, she’s going to flip_ , but Chris isn’t paying him any attention. Instead he says, “come by Saturday and I’ll give you a holster for that thing. And some more lessons, if you want.”

For a minute Stiles just stares at him, lost. Chris knows the emotions he’s going through well enough, know that he’s looking for them; he can practically read the _but I’m just the human_ written all over Stiles’ face. Eventually he swallows and nods, turning to drag Liam from the scene of the crime and instead let Chris handle the corpse, as the only adult present and the hunter to boot, he’s the only one there really capable of handling the situation.

Besides, the kids probably have a test tomorrow or something. Allison had always been talking about how many tests she had, before. Chris can’t imagine the tests just _disappear_ , so maybe he’ll ask about that Saturday. He files the thought away as he reaches for his phone, fingers already dialing a nearby contact to let them know about the witch’s death. Not likely that anyone’s going to miss her, but just in case it’s always good to have a Plan B.

Saturday shines bright and before the clock even strikes ten, Stiles is at his door, sports bag slung over his shoulder and hair sticking up. There are bags under his eyes, even though there hasn’t been any trouble since the witch, and Chris steps back to let him in, crossing his arms as Stiles shuts the door behind him.

“So,” Stiles says, bouncing on his toes. “What’re we learnin’ today, coach?”

There’s a tip to his voice, tight and awkward, his fingers restless on the strap of his bag. He looks tired, his lashes dancing over his cheeks a few miliseconds too long as he blinks, and Chris swallows, shifting his shoulders. It’s a voice he hasn’t had to use in a while, so he clears his throat before he speaks, watching Stiles’ arch his eyebrows as he bolsters his confidence.

“First hunter lesson,” Chris says, using what Allison had once jokingly called his Dad Voice, “never train on an empty stomach.”

Stiles look at him for a second, understanding in his eyes, becoming brighter and more clear the longer he stares at him, and then he tips his head, fingers stilling on the strap of his bag.

“No coffee,” Stiles says, tone saying something that his mouth isn’t. That something sounds a lot like Lydia’s _I can’t be her_ , even if neither of them had used those exact words. Chris smiles and knows it’s an empty looking thing, like a crypt Isaac had told him, hands jammed down in his hoodie pockets in an airport on the way to France.

(“Didn’t know you were such a poet, Isaac,” he’d muttered, dryly, clutching his cardboard cup of coffee and still feeling his lungs constrict with grief in every breath. Isaac had shrugged, his favorite motion Chris had learned, and cocked his head to the side like a puppy.

 _It’s something he picked up from Scott_ , Allison had explained fondly.

God, he missed her.)

“No coffee,” Chris promises, knowing he is agreeing to something else entirely. “Water’s better for you anyway, especially since we’re going running later. Caffeine only dehydrates you.”

 _I don’t need you to be her,_ Chris is trying to say, in the roundabout way Stiles and Derek had always used to talk. Chris had always noticed it, but never understood why they bothered, but if it made Stiles feel better to talk in code, he’ll try it. God knows he has nothing else better to do.

 _I just want to help you_.

Stiles looks at him another minute more before nodding, hair bouncing against his forehead as he does so. He smiles crookedly, a little self-deprecating, and with a little shrug that reminds Chris he should call Isaac sometime today to check on him, Stiles brushes past him, confidently striding toward Chris’ kitchen without asking.

“Good,” the teenager says, his loud voice bouncing off Chris’ previously silent walls. “It messes with my Addreall and then I’ll twitch for hours and, like, ask my dad but it’s hell trying to get me to focus after that. _Especially_ if-“

Stiles continues on, even when he’s out of sight, trusting Chris can hear him with his voice bouncing off the acoustics Chris hadn’t even known this place had. He stands there for a minute, letting the teenager go, and he hard as he tries, he can’t help but wonder if she’d be proud of him.

In the end he can only hope so, dragging a hand through the scruff on his face and grimacing at the sound of Stiles digging through his fridge, running a full commentary on how empty it was like Chris wasn’t fully aware of that, as the only living person in the apartment.

Later he’ll call Isaac, ask how he’s settled in with that French pack, ask him about his classes and school work and try and tease him about how many scarves he’s probably acquired to combat the cold. Later he’ll call the Sherriff as well, let him know he’s taken Stiles under his wing, as the only one qualified enough to tell the kid what it takes to run with wolves. The Sherriff will probably argue that Stiles has been managing just fine on his own, or argue that he could teach him how to handle a gun just fine, which he’ll probably answer with _you could, but you haven’t_. It’ll be a whole argument, probably get him a threat or two about arresting him, but in the end, he thinks the Sherriff will come around, let him train Stiles as best he can.

For now he can only enter his kitchen, leaning against the doorjam as Stiles looks aghast into the fridge despite its declared emptiness.

Chris speaks before Stiles can, cutting off whatever witty remark the kid no doubt has with a sigh.

“C’mon,” Chris says, pushing off the doorjam and patting his pockets to make sure his keys are there. “I hope you eat McDonald’s breakfast, kid.”

“Well _yeah_ ,” Stiles says. “Less of it probably than Isaac did.”

“Small mercies,” Chris laughs and the motion doesn’t feel like glass in his lungs so much anymore, grief only in every other breath instead.

Allison would have been so proud of him, he likes to think. She’d have given him one of her glittering smiles, eyes bright as she skipped ahead. If she were here, Isaac would be too, and she would have stolen shotgun from him easily, subjecting the boys to her taste in radio as they sulked in the backseat.

If Allison was here, everything would be different, Chris is sure.

But she’s not here and Isaac’s in France, so Stiles climbs into the passenger seat without a fuss, playing with his phone, thumbs tapping rapidly away on it at speeds Chris can’t even fanthom.

“Derek says hi,” Stiles says, dropping the phone in his lap to play with the radio. Chris raises his eyebrows and Stiles laughs, shrugging, the motion not awkward at all. “Lydia also says she might be over today, wants to do some research on the stuff you have.”

Chris clears his voice again, wondering at the power of teenagers. Bossy, entitled, loud-

(He’d seen Derek as an adult when this whole mess had started, but now he considered him one of the teenagers, twenty-three or not. He’d been robbed his teenage years by a tragedy Kate had conducted, so the least Chris could do was cut him slack and consider him one of the teens.

Especially since teenagers fell into the category of _those who cannot protect themselves_ , more often than not.)

“Tell Derek hi,” Chris says, Dad Voice coming back in full force, no throat clearing or mental preparation needed for the action. “And tell Lydia if she wants to come over now, we can grab her breakfast.”

“You think Lydia Martin eats McDonalds,” Stiles sputters. “Have you _met_ her?” He’s already texting again, head bent over the phone. _Teenagers_ , Chris thinks fondly. Isaac had been the same way, as had Chris’ own baby girl.

(God, he misses her.

But she’s not here and he is, and so still life goes on.

He’ll just have try and make her proud as best he can with what he has.)

**Author's Note:**

> so there were Tags okay and they were very inspiring and how could I not write Sad Grizzly Dad Chris relearning how to care via the teenagers his dead daughter called friends, particularly the human one who would like a gun???
> 
> I miss Teen Wolf. pity it ended after, like, season 3, right? (smh I'm in denial I know)
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
